A contemporary anarcho-socialist woman

Mental Health Attacked as Reason for Abortion in Kansas

Sigh. Yet again, tiresome Kansas State Representative Lance Kinzer, a man, is leading the way in attempts to restrict women’s reproductive choices and her decisions regarding her own health.

His current hobby horse is finding ever-more invasive and paternalistic ways to take away women’s ability to obtain late-term abortion. He has found that outlawing late-term abortion altogether won’t fly, because then some women who need such abortions merely to survive might die, and he’d have a PR nightmare on his hands.

So he has refocused on eliminating the mental health exception to the general late-term abortion ban (late-term abortions are banned in Kansas except for “irreversible impairment of a major bodily function”). Mental health has been ruled by courts as possibly meeting this exception, and Kinzer is incensed.

Kinzer argued that getting rid of the mental health exception fit with the state’s “legitimate interest in protecting life.”

“What we have here is a baby, a baby if given the chance would be able to live on its own outside its mothers’ womb,” Kinzer said.

What about the state’s interest in protecting the life of the woman, you idiot!? AAAAArg.

Oh, but friend-of-women Kinzer isn’t done yet. Oh no, he and his pals have more ideas about how they can improve women’s lives by intruding into their personal business and restricting their medical options.

[A] second proposal would require doctors to provide an exact medical diagnosis justifying a late-term abortion in their reports to the state.

It also would allow a woman or her family to sue a doctor if there was evidence that her late-term abortion violated the law.

Nice guys. Real nice. Totally constitutional. I, for one, would relish the opportunity to report ALL my doctor’s visits to the state! Because my health and the medical procedures I undergo are totally the proper business of Lance Kinzer, et al. So can we work on making this bill equal? I have a feeling men are going to really pissed to so be cavalierly left out of this life-protecting measure. What’s good for the gander is good for the goose, no?